


a little help from my friends

by ZephyrEden



Series: even in the darkness, we'll still have each other [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, i'll talk about ven's deal another time, it didn't end up fitting in well here so it's not, post xehanort saga, supportive friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 16:39:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15417156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZephyrEden/pseuds/ZephyrEden
Summary: Despite the healing that they've done, some wounds never heal.





	a little help from my friends

“It’s weird.”

Aqua thinks there’s a lot of ways to describe what they’ve been through, what they’re going through, what they’ll go through. There’s a lot of ways to describe the feelings they deal with being back in the realm of light, being in this world, being in this room. “Weird” is so severely an understatement that the thought of using it has never even crossed her mind. “Which part?” she asks after a moment of trying to wrap her brain around using such a casual description of everything she’s feeling right now.

Ventus chuckles, looking up from the hand settled on the arm of the throne to Aqua, a smile on his face. He can’t hide the pain lingering in his eyes, the tension making his lips twitch. “Being here, seeing it like it is now, or well, how it used to be,” he looks back down at his hand, expression faltering. “Just… everything. It feels weird.”

“I guess that’s one way to put it,” she agrees despite herself.

Ven shakes his head, “How would you put it then?”

“Like a twisted dreamscape that feels so increasingly bizarre that I’m never entirely sure if I’m awake or asleep,” Aqua answers easily. She spends too much time thinking about how this place makes her feel.

It makes Ven laugh, though, which puts her at ease. “Wow, ten years sure made you blunt.” He shakes his head. He kind of likes this Aqua, this one that doesn’t just put up with things, this one that doesn’t waste time beating around the bush.

She lifts an eyebrow. “Unfortunately, it didn’t make _you_ anymore eloquent.”

“Yeah, well, I was asleep. Didn’t have a dictionary to entertain myself with,” he snipes back, hand still moving back and forth along the arm of the throne. “But you can take it from someone that definitely knows the difference between waking and sleep – this _definitely_ isn’t a dream.”

She makes a noise of acknowledgment while she watches him. She still can’t figure out why he asked to come in here, why the first place he asked about upon arrival was the place he’s spent a decade sleeping in. She opens her mouth to ask, but he beats her to it.

“You know,” he says, voice dropping, like he’s telling her a secret. “There’s a part of me that’s terrified of this place. A part that thinks if I sit in this chair again, the next time I blink another century will have passed.”

Aqua can understand that much, at least. “I avoid mirrors.”

“What?” Ven snaps out of his daze, looking at her strangely.

“Mirrors, I avoid them. I’m scared I’ll see _her_ in them.”

“…Her?”

“Another me.” She can hear her own voice taunting her, the words ringing like a sickening lullaby in her ears. It’s one that keeps her up often, unblinking as she starts at the shadows on the ceiling in the middle of the night. “One designed to find the cracks in my heart and chip away at them until I break.”

“I’m sorry,” Ven says quietly, but she’s already shaking her head.

“It’s not your fault, Ven.”

He leaves the throne’s side for the first time since they walked in here, now standing in front of Aqua and gripping both her arms with a strength she wouldn’t have guessed he possessed before all this happened. “You’re a good person, Aqua,” and the statement would almost seem asinine if she didn’t so keenly feel the opposite was true. “You didn’t deserve anything that _he_ put you through. None of us did.” It’s something he’s spent enough time thinking about and this is the answer he’s arrived at, the one he knows to be true. “But you made it through, anyways. Your heart is strong, Aqua. One of the strongest I know and _that’s_ saying something.” That gets Aqua to laugh and he smiles easily at the sound.

“Now you’re just exaggerating,” she says with a shake of her head. But the words make her feel… light. Like something heavy has been lifted for a short time. She pokes his chest. “Your heart is strong too, you know.”

“Yeah, well,” he grins cheekily, something bright in his eyes. “I’ve had a lot of help getting it that way.”

She sighs, but keeps smiling as she wraps her arms around Ven, a sense of reprieve filling her when he instantly returns the embrace. “We both have,” she nods, resting her chin on the top of his head. “We both have.”

**Author's Note:**

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